Wide angle photography

While in Banff I attempted to take some wide angle shots using composition suggestions that I picked up in a book entitled 'John Shaw's Nature Photography Field Guide'. John Shaw's books are great, they have a clear style without being too technical, and his photos are amazing. His book 'John Shaw's Landscape Photography' will also explain how to take this kind of shot.

This shot requires some planning and setup. First of all, you need a tripod. Because I had the Chickadee with me, and we were traveling, I didn't bring mine with me, which ruined some of my other attempts. The reason you need a tripod is because you must set your aperture as high as it will go, which will result in your shutter speed being too slow to hold your camera in your hand. These shots were taken at F-22. This gives you a great depth of field. In the above photo, that means the rock and the mountain will both be in focus.

Next, you set your lens to the widest angle it will go. I used my 18-70 mm zoom lens and set it at 18 mm.

The next part is the time consuming, body contorting, tripod adjusting act of composing the photo. You need to choose something interesting to place in the foreground. In the above picture I chose a boulder. You will need to get very very close to this subject. I was probably less than 6 inches away from the boulder. Then you work on getting an angle that includes your subject and the background in the distance.

Now you're ready to take the picture. Your shutter speed will probably be slow because the aperature is so small, hence the need for the tripod.

If you're interested in learning how to take this shot, read John Shaw's books, he explains this much better than I did. (His photos are also much better than mine).